Name: Kanji Kerai
Employer: Willmott Dixon Construction
Project: School of Optometry & Vision Sciences, Cardiff University
Contract: JCT 98
With a Willmott Dixon project for the client having overrun and gone into dispute just two years before, Kanji Kerai had something to prove. Delivering on time, to quality and budget, and managing this project without confrontation were his key objectives.
Glowing commendations from the client show that Kanji met them perfectly, but, in truth, his achievement was even greater than the 9.5 out of 10 satisfaction rating would suggest. For this was a project that had been seriously derailed when full planning permission was denied just as the steelwork erecters were completing the frame.
Work only restarted 18 months later with a revised and incomplete design that reduced the height of the building and relocated the mechanical plant from the roof to the basement. With the architects and engineers under intense pressure to make the design changes and get them signed off, Kanji provided a level of assistance way outside the contract and focused the weekly meetings on immediate must-have information. By the end of the project he had made 671 requests for information and recorded 800 verbal variations.
Despite the hectic pace, Kanji gave full consideration to the client’s interests.
When the discovery of contaminated soil forced the relocation of boreholes for the ground source heating system, he used the 10-month delay to cut costs by value-engineering the system to reduce the number of boreholes needed. And he saved the university another £90,000 by pushing for the replacement of the internal blockwork walls with a new super-strong plasterboard product.
These kind of initiatives kept the project tighter to the cost plan than many comparable schemes. The client was so impressed that it is adopting Kanji’s alternative internal walls solution for all its future projects.
Even more importantly, Kanji achieved a 0% defect handover by targeting right-first-time quality. He built three rooms to the finish the client required as a benchmark, and enforced that level of quality across the trades.
Enthusiastic, pragmatic and proactive, Kanji overcame a series of tough challenges on a key project for Willmott Dixon. He met the client’s time, budget and quality demands, and his excellent people skills, clear thinking and refusal to be rattled by bad news triumphantly rescued a faltering project.